Bright Side of Life
by Hexe
Summary: What would you do if you woke up one day and found you had kids? Never thought about it? Well, Dawn hadn't either...


Disclaimer: All characters from the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc. All original characters are the property of me.

_What would you do if you woke up one morning and found out you had kids? Not something you'd think about? Well, it wasn't for Dawn, either…_

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Chapter 1

Dawn groaned and opened her eyes blearily. Why exactly was there a small child bouncing up and down on her chest? For that matter, what a little kid doing in her house in the first place. Something strange was definitely going on. Not that that was at all unusual, but couldn't whatever it was wait until a more accommodating hour of the day? It was early in the morning and she was still half asleep right now.

She pulled herself upright, plonking the little girl into her lap and staring down at her.

"Mornin' mama" the kid said cheerfully. "You up now, so gotta take my an' Ricky to the park."

Dawn stared down at the girl. Had she just said 'mama'? And who was Ricky, and why on earth would Dawn be taking him and this girl to the park on a Saturday morning? She always slept in.

She turned her head to look at the clock on the table beside her bed. It read 6.59am. There was no way she'd be awake at this time on a Saturday. Therefore, she must still be asleep; this must all be a really strange dream. Although that little girl did seem awfully solid.

Dawn could think of only one way of discovering if this was a dream. The good old traditional method of pinching.

"Pinch me," she ordered the child. If the no pain in dreams rumour were true, then surely it would be doubly effective if coming from a figment of that dream. Plus, she'd feel awful silly pinching herself.

The child was now insistently pulling on her hand, obviously trying to budge her from her nice warm cocoon of covers. But at Dawn's request she paused and stared at Dawn, giving her an odd look.

"But you said I wasn't 'lowed to pinch no-one no more, 'cause it hurt people!"

Dawn rolled her eyes, "Well, now I'm telling you that you can pinch me, just this once," she said patiently.

The little girl shrugged and grabbed hold of the skin on Dawn's hand, grasping it tightly between two of her little fingers.

Dawn winced, and yanked away, causing more damage to her hand. Damn, that kid was strong for such a little thing! But there was definitely no doubt it is had hurt. Did that mean that, somehow, she wasn't dreaming?

"So, why am I taking you to the park?" she asked, conversationally. If she was awake, she'd better find out what was going on here. Some sort of major weird mojo, from the look of things.

"Cos you promised to, of course, mama!" the tyke said indignantly, "An' we always gotta keep promises. That's what you said! It is!"

Dawn nodded at the kid, "Yep, sure. Got it. We've all got to keep promises. Very good. Glad to know it. Now, where are some adults I can talk with, kid?"

"Aunty Buff downstairs with Ricky. Aunty Willow still in bed. She said it too early when I tried to get her up! Let's go to the park now! Up!"

Dawn groaned and swung out of bed, after picking the kid up and plonking her on the bed. She held out her arms, and the girl jumped into them.

"All right, kiddo. Let's go find out what the hell is going on here!" she said, swinging the girl around onto her shoulders. She was so light; couldn't be more than 3 years old. Yet obviously had a very nice vocabulary for it!

"Ooooh, mama, you said 'hell'!" the kid said, in a shocked tone, "You not meant to say that. You got mad at Unca Spikey when he said sodding! Hell is worse! You said so!"

Dawn was getting a little sick of having stuff that she 'had said so' parroted back at her. So, who was this kid, and why was she here? And how on earth had she ended up with a kid at 17?

The child took handfuls of Dawn's hair in her little fists and started using it as reigns, "Giddy up, mama-horse!" she giggled. Dawn winced as her roots got yanked.

"Oy, play gentle!" she said, reaching behind her and gently swatting at the kid's hands to get her to loosen her grip.

"Oh, but gentle is _boring_," the tyke whinged.

"Yeah, but pulling on my hair _hurts_ you know!" Dawn pointed out. "Is it really a nice thing to do when you want me to take you to the park?"

The little hands immediately loosened a little, and Dawn walked into the kitchen, her small companions perched quite happily up on her shoulders.

"Morning, Dawnie," Buffy smiled from the toaster, "I see Jaycee managed to get you up after all. She and Ricky have been waiting for you! It really was a bad idea to say you'd take them as soon as you were up…"

"Buff, _what_ is going on?" Dawn asked, swinging the kid – Jaycee apparently- down onto the bench and joining her sister.

Buffy looked confused, "What do you _mean_ what's going on? I'm making the twins some breakfast, and then the three of you are off to the park, like you promised them you would. _I'm _making the breakfast, so you have to make the picnic, though."

"But who _are _Jaycee and Ricky, _what _are they doing here, and _why _am I taking two kids to the park on a Saturday morning when I should be _asleep_?" Dawn said, shaking her hands in frustration.

Buffy raised her eyebrows, "What do you mean, 'who are they'? They're your kids of course… did you bang your head when you were getting up or something? Are you all right? Dawnie? What's wrong?"

Her sister had sunk down onto a chair and was now staring incredulously at her.

"One problem, Buffy," Dawn said, "I don't _have _any children."

What on _earth _was going on here?

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Authors note: Okay, just a little bit of light writing that I started ages ago and decided to start working on again, see what happened. If I get a reasonable response from people then I'll continue. Please review if you'd like to see more of this. 


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